Week 11

This week I'm just adding the grading criteria that we went through in class. Keep these in mind (in relation to art making, techniques, art concepts, etc.) when you fill out your self-assessment form for Project 3.

Georgie Project 3

 Week 10

As the topic of memorials can be quite broad for someone wanting to create a series or just one individual artistic work I have focused on just one kind of memorial. When we brain stormed in class I realised that there are a myriad of different ways to remember or celebrate life and death and every kind of achievement. The most common of which is the memorial of death, and it is this that I want to explore, not death as such but the memory of it. In particular I have chosen to take my inspiration form mourning jewellery. From my research I have found that people of the Victorian era were the most fascinated by death and remembrance. They used jewellery as a means to capture some kind of personal attachment to a deceased person. More often than not they would incorporate locks of a dead person’s hair into a brooch or ring, or even as a fob watch chain. The patterns could become quite intricate. It was said at the time in a popular ladies magazine: “Hair is at once the most delicate and lasting of our materials, and survives us, like love.”[1] This idea of a personal remembrance is something I want to explore in my project. Jewellery as a means to remember is, in my opinion, a very personal and effective way to keep the memory of a loved one close. How much closer can you can you get than something which is worn on the person day after day. It is literally wearing your heart on your sleeve.  

 The way I am going to do it is by making some kind of jewellery piece or pieces, in which there is a personal message or token of one or many. I have been very influenced by the designer and artist; Hannah af Ekstrom, who creates jewellery that is full of meaning. She uses jewellery as a means to contain and carry whatever concept or impression she is interested in. that is what I will be doing, using jewellery as a devise or container of personal remembrance.

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 "yours sincerely, Aubrey Beardsley": rope work necklace

 

Hannah af Ekstrom also uses a lot of textiles in her work, in particular she incorporates black sailing rope which she wound and stitched together. These results in a very strong graphic quality that makes it stand out not just against the skin and clothing when worn, but also when it is simply standing alone.

Another artist who I have drawn inspiration from is Melanie Bilenker; she also takes a lot from the Victorian era’s fascination with death and remembering life. She uses hair, just as the Victorians did, as a means to remember and embed meaning into the works. However instead of using the hair as a means to keep a dead loved one close, she uses it to remember the trivial moments in her life, which in a sense is a memorial of past actions. “I am very interested in commemoration”[2]. Much like the Victorian mourning jewellery, Bilenker’s works are incredibly intricate and because of this the meaningless and banal moments she documents become important and worth remembering.

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[1] ‘Godey’s Lady’s Book’, May 1855. Sarah Josepha Hale: editor 1837-1877

[2] ‘ the new artisans’- Olivier Dupon 

WEEK 12

Project inspirations and ideas

Calligraphy: this has such a history; its origins are intertwined with the origins of humanity itself. Ever since humans could communicate they have attempted to document such communications, the earliest known being cave drawings and progressing from there. The Egyptians created hieroglyphs that were highly stylized and beautiful. From here the art of the written word went from nation to nation, empire to empire, the Greeks to the Romans, from the Romans to the Christian world of bible writing, documenting the word of God in beautiful letters. The art of the written word flourished in the renaissance. This was merely the journey of calligraphy through the western world, its journey through Asia and especially china is equally enthralling, with calligraphy still being a highly prized to this day. However not only Asia and Europe have the monopoly on swirly writing, the Middle East and northern Africa, not to mention India, Nepal etc. have their own calligraphy styles also.          

                                                                                          

Why do I want to use Calligraphy? Because much like mourning jewellery, calligraphy has a long and rich history of documentation and memory. We write things down to remember them whether it be our weekly shopping list, class notes or religious teachings. This project is all about memorial and memory, by making every part of the final art work a form of memorial or remembrance I hope to get across to the audience the actual idea, feeling and concept of the piece, rather than having to explain it in depth when I present it.

Signatures: a person’s signature is possibly the most personal and intimate things anyone has. No two are alike and each one carries different meanings, responsibilities and power. Signatures are the finger prints of the literary world and they are immediately recognisable as an individual persons property. In fact in some countries if an illiterate person is required to sign a document they may give their thumb print in lieu. A signature can carry such wait and power, like a signature on a declaration of war, or it could carry just a little like one of many on a petition. Signatures are like our stamps; we stamp our personality on anything we sign because a signature is the one aspect of any kind of writing that can be truly our own. Some may be small and others may be large and sprawled across the page with flamboyant swirls.

This is why I have chosen to have each piece of jewellery personalised with someone’s signature. It is at once more personal and intimate than any kind of hair sample or portrait. Yes it is even more personal than a portrait because someone’s signature is proof that that particular person has stool there, deliberated and placed there mark upon the page, without any interference from another party.    

More inspirational artists

Antonia Rossi has not inspired me in so many words, however I have enjoyed looking at her artworks and her crochet necklaces have given me many ideas for my project. I haven’t really used most of those ideas, however it helps immeasurably to have artist who use techniques I am exploring successfully, to look at and refer to. Rossi has her own style and way of doing things, she carries her materials around with her often uses found and used materials. This gives me inspiration in not only things to make and create but also how to do it, its artists like Rossi that make you realise there are other ways of making and finding ideas.

Much like my own work for this project, Rossi often uses her artwork and necklaces as vessels or pouches in which notes or objects can be placed ready to be found or read and then rediscovered all over again.

Anne Holman is another artist who has inspired me throughout this project. Not because she uses making techniques that I do, but because her art is very beautiful and because every piece of her jewellery is inspired, contains or is made of something that has great significance to Holman. She remakes antique jewellery and is constantly inspired by a hope chest that was left to her by her grandparents. She is quoted saying; “I have always been a collector of objects and am fascinated by the histories each holds” (quote from ‘the new artisans’ by Olivier Dupon, 2011). She has a series of necklaces that are simply vials of soil with a section of antique map framed in metal as the stopper. Each has the geographical co-ordinates of where the soil came from, stamped onto the metal of the stopper. Each one of those necklaces is a memorial of that particular place from whence the dirt originated, and in years to come others will look at them and know their origins.

 

 

Collaborative exercise

 

This sample is a combination of three processes.

The first was a time-based mark produced by cold bundling the cloth with a rusted bobbin for a two-day duration, which left a patterned stain once relieved.

The second saw the application of a selection of coloured thread embroidered around the markings made within the first action.

And the third was the sectioning and bordering of the piece using simple crochet technique, which formed the beginnings of a vessel like structure.

The finished piece was a collaborative development of processes, which came together with a range of other samples to form a series for a pop up exhibition. 

As the one of the few three-dimensional pieces within the exhibition the piece provided diversity not only within the series but also within its contrasting techniques.

The combination of staining, embroidery and sculptural crochet allowed it to emit a bold presence within the selection of similar works. 

 

The collaboration exhibition as a whole however showcased an insight into the ability to combine individual practices and produced some exciting and unpredicted results.

Collectively the group was a lively representation of the personalities and character of the participants and created a sense of growth and community within the finished works. 

 This piece creates textures and a kind of design feel to it, the holes look like they were burnt with an incense stick to control the burning from spreading throughout the fabric. The holes work well with the drawn lines and create a pattern that is most interesting and really could be developed further. Even looking at the back of the piece without the lines being visible but just the holes is quite interesting. The lines have created a pattern with the holes that may not have been able to be created before without the lines. The lines and holes look great on the fabric but the fabric almost looks lost in it’s pureness, the color of it seems to fresh and obscure. I feel that the piece isn’t finished and with further sampling could really develop into a much bigger and more exciting piece. It has also given me ideas to use incense to burn with as it creates a much controlled burn that can create a more interesting pattern than if you just burnt it on the stove, left it and hoped for the best. It is an interesting piece even thought it just came from experimenting it has already given me ideas for other techniques that I could use in the future.

 

This piece is chaotic, sporadic and limitless on first observation. It is a jumbled mixture of threads that have seldom been placed with order. Looking closer at the piece, layers upon layers of this thread can be spotted, giving it levels that were unimaginable at first glance. The piece is quite fragmented due to the random nature of the threads but knowing that the piece started as a cloth and was then stripped back to such fragility gives it vulnerability and definitely adheres to the idiom ‘Hanging by a Thread’.

There is something engaging about the process behind this piece. The breaking down of the cloth strand by strand until it’s nothing but individual threads is quite poetic. I feel as though the procedure behind the deconstruction of the cloth has become the concept and the backbone of the final piece thus leaving it a little bit unresolved as a final, stand alone work.

This piece could have benefited from a reconstruction; post deconstruction but it is multifaceted and exposed through its composure, which ultimately supports its motive. 

On first viewing and unfolding of this little piece it engendered a response of 'no merit'. I couldn't see how it could be furthered and in its existing form seemed a bit chaotic, crunched up and lonely. I put it down, put it away and then returned for another viewing. I found that its merit lay in installation possibilities.
Potential power in a piece not only lies in its inheritant qualities but also in the way those qualities are presented to the viewer. Hanging lifts this crunched up bundle into a spinning, airy tendril mobile. Reminiscent of weathered paper Chinese lanterns or floating ghostly spectres or a fronded light shade. It can be imagined that a ceiling filled with many units of this kind all spinning and swaying from the movement could be an incredibly visceral experience. 

The original piece of white fabric has been transformed through the process of adding colour and structure to the piece. This transformation however dose not extend beyond random colour positioning and what appears to be intentional creases that have all but worm out of the piece through its overall construction.

The interesting combination of materials seems promising with this piece as it transforms the visual qualities of the piece through a connection between the use of domestic and the chemical materials.

This work employs the use of a cosmetic bronzer and dye that has been stained in splotches on the fabric to create a new textured and coloured surface. Never the less something falls short with this piece, as at this stage the piece seems unfinished.

The coloured properties that have been applied to the fabric are not enough to render a finalized work. This initial piece presents a starting point rather then an end piece but alludes to the possibility of further development within this interesting pairing of materials.  

While this piece has no obvious sophisticated concept about it, it is interesting to look at. It is comprised of small white cotton squares roughly about the same size and they have been machine sewn together with red zig zag stitch. The red zig zag gives the piece a slight decorative feel, more so than if it had of been a straight running stitch. It is a nice balance of order and sporadic, the order of the zig zag and the line the piece forms and in contrast the spontaneous placing of the squares.

    

This piece explores a range of lines, colours and textures. In saying this, all three elements don’t seem to fit well together especially the colour choice of the lines in relation to the colours of the stitching. The almost rhythmical layout of the stitches is effective against the backdrop of the well dispersed but controlled lines running the opposite way. I find this piece to be fun and not serious, which I find to be visually exciting. Maybe experimenting with dying and a resist could of given an equally effective line background. In terms of texture, the comparison between the 3d stitches and the flat surface of the cloth is an interesting juxtaposition and could benefit from further experimentation and development. 

 

This square piece of cotton conveys a two-stage process of creation and destruction. An ordinary piece of white cotton has been transformed firstly through the use of permaset ink on lino cut which has then been printed onto the fabric. The white shapes and lines move very freely across the piece and contrast nicely against the dark brown tone of the ink. The piece evokes a very natural feeling as it uses warm tones that are reminiscent of nature.

The white sections of the cotton have been manipulated through the use of scissors and tearing. This alters the surface as it has been torn apart so that it becomes semi-transparent. You almost feel the urge to touch the piece and peel back the edges to reveal what’s underneath and on the other side.

The silk trimming at the top section of the square adds a touch of colour and provides contrast to the piece. The smooth, flat texture of the silk is juxtaposed against the torn and rough surface of the cotton. The silk acts as a veil concealing the top half of the piece so you can only slightly see what’s underneath. The layering of the pink and orange tones apparent in the silk combined with the brown tone of the cotton alters the colouring of the piece as a whole as when you pick it up and look it from different perspectives and under the light, new shades and patterns become visible to the eye. 

 

Project 3 Week 10 Feedback

Really interesting developments. A number of changes of direction as the ideas start to crystalise for you. Do keep the time constraints in mind, however, as you should be firming your ideas for the final piece around now. If you are going to need to experiment with some techniques or materials, then you need to be starting that now. In the previous two projects you presented experimental samples as part of your assessment, and that really boosted some people's grades. This time you only have the final work and the writing, so you really need to develop your ideas, have a clear goal for your work, and finish it off as a stand-alone piece. I'll be marking it on its technical, aesthetic and conceptual qualities. This doesn't mean you need to throw a lot of things at it. It could be a quite simple technique, combined with a great concept, and executed really well. A really brilliant concept that you have spent hours researching, combined with an unengaging artwork, however, won't get you a great mark. Put your energies into a well-thought-out, well-planned, well-made, aesthetically-balanced, coherent, well-realised artwork instead.

In a review in Saturday's SMH (Spectrum, p. 13), John McDonald wrote: "With most of the other works in Marking Time, the conceptual element is so pronounced it feels like an obstacle between the spectator and the art - as if there were an invisible wall of ideas to be negotiated before one's eyes come into play. In traditional MCA fashion, these pieces are generally more fascinating for the artist than for the viewer. The ideas may be seductive but the visual aspect is profoundly uninviting; and without that necessary lure most of us will simply walk away."

Alice Project 3

WEEK 11

I come as an orphan to you, moist with love. I come without refuge to you, giver of sacred rest. I come a fallen man to you, uplifted of all. I come undone by disease to you, the perfect physician. I come, my heart dry with thirst, to you, ocean of sweet wine. Do with me whatever you will. [59]

Looking through huge amounts of websites and skimming through all different kinds of books on the Ganges. I discovered how much there really was to learn about them and how I could go on to learn more about them for a very long time. Looking at the kinds of materials and ways they would create memorials, I thought it was quite beautiful and such a nicer way to remember someone, rather than just a piece of rock in the ground.

I also looked at the huge amount of things that end up in the gangs and water looks so brown, so I decided to create some samples from all the different kinds of offerings that are thrown into the gangs to create could karma and more memorials for the sacred river. They use so many different things including rice, sesame seeds and incense. The samples I created are from burning incense onto fabric over time and placing bits of fabric in hot dirty water and wrapping fabric around sesame seeds and rice and placing them also in just plain hot water. Imp still waiting for the results, as I want to leave them for as long as possible.

Alex Project 3

WEEK 9

I began my research this week with artist Amy Boone-McCreesh.

 

Boone-McCreesh takes inspiration from celebratory and funeral displays in various cultures, exploring the links between decoration and human relationships. I see links between our work in a number of ways and am interested in the way she uses a combination of paper, found objects and cloth, and also the way she installs her work.

 

In this project I intend to extend on my previous work this year: colour, confetti stains, drawing, seeping and collage. I am interested in a conversation between ornament and tragedy. What is the function of decoration in memorials? Colour in ceremony? These are my starting points. I have a particular interest in garlands and wreaths, often made from flowers, foliage and paper, fashioned into symbols of respect, and remembrance.

 

All images are from http://amyboonemccreesh.com

Project 3 Week 9 Feedback

I think this is a really good theme for a project because it has scope for such a wide variety of work, as can be seen in the research so far. Everyone has got really good starting points, and it will be interesting to see them develop (or change completely if you change your mind - just don't leave it too late!).

For people who are interested in ephemeral works, or installation, make sure that you document the work really well. The photographs will effectively be the work you are judged on, so make sure they are really good quality, and be creative with the look of the image and the presentation.

The projects in this class are opportunities for you to bring everything that you've learned in all your workshops, electives and theory classes together, filtered through and influenced by your artistic skills and experiences, to produce something that is uniquely yours. However, I want you to think about what it means to be distinctive (i.e. getting a Distinction):
"Characteristic of one person or thing, and so serving to distinguish it from others."
"Having a special quality, style, attractiveness, etc.; notable."

For this project I really want you to think about what makes your work stand out from others. What makes it special, or notable. I've talked about cliches a number of times in relation to the work you've been producing. If you are making work that I've seen hundreds of times, then it's not distinctive. It might be well made, it might be a new technique for you, you might have put a lot of work into it, but that doesn't mean it deserves a high mark. Think critically about your work in relation to the work of professional artists that I've presented in class. Be ambitious, but also be realistic about the time you have to achieve your goals. 


I look forward to seeing how the projects develop in Week 10.